L'épine défend la rose
by x-forbiddenrose-x
Summary: Before the fatal performance, Erik leaves a rose in Christine's dressing room. Leroux based, but the rose idea most obviously came from the 2004 movie.


**Disclaimer: I do not own POTO.**

**L'épine défend la rose**

Christine walked into her dressing room hesitantly. Tonight, after the performance, she would fly away with Raoul. She still continued to fear that Erik knew all about their flight. Constantly, she tried to convince herself that it was just paranoia, but it didn't work very well. Christine worried that, given the sort of person Erik was, he would go to extreme measures to keep her grounded at the Opera Garnier, where she was well within his reach. Much to her relief, no one was in her dressing room waiting for her besides the maid assigned to her, Diane.

"Good evening, Mademoiselle," she said with a polite curtsey.

"Good evening, Diane. How is your mother?"

"She's doing better, Mademoiselle. Thank you for your concern." Christine gingerly removed her costume for the first act of **_Faust_** from her dressing rack and slipped into the inner room.

"Do you need any assistance, Mademoiselle?" Diane asked from the main room.

"No, thank you, Diane. You can go home now."

"Are you sure, Mademoiselle?"

"Yes. Go ahead." The hooks on the back of both Christine's dress and costume were difficult to do, but she had been doing them herself since her mother died when she was six. Christine wasn't used to having servants, and she didn't think she had to work Diane more than she needed to.

After she was changed into her costume, Christine emerged from the inner room. She walked over to the vanity and began arranging her golden locks in the simple style that was required for the role of Margarita. When she got up from the vanity stool, something was knocked to the floor. Christine looked down at the thing on the floral carpet, and saw that it was a single, deep red rose.

"Raoul," she cooed happily as she knelt down to pick it up. A thorn pricked her finger, causing her to drop the rose. After the pain had dulled away, Christine picked the rose up. There was a note attached to it, written in a clumsy red scroll:

_L'épine défend la rose._

_-Erik_

Christine dropped the rose in shock. Erik. He'd never left her a rose before, never even given her one. Why would he do so tonight of all nights? Christine tried to calm down and convince herself that Erik didn't know anything of her plans. It could've just been one of his little attentions. Maybe he thought it a nice gesture to leave her a rose.

Diane burst through the dressing room door, pulling Christine from her panicked thoughts,and said, "Pardon me, Mademoiselle, but I forgot my bag." She whizzed right past Christine and went over to one of the fine chairs where a large canvas bag was sitting. "Good evening, Mademoiselle," she called as she left the room.

"Good evening, Diane." Christine looked down at the rose that lay at her feet. It had been trampled under Diane's shoes, and now it lay trodden on the carpet, it's red petals sprawled out like blood.

* * *

"Holy angel, in heaven blessed, my spirit longs with thee to rest!" Christine sang with ecstasy. Suddenly, the stage plunged into darkness. Christine felt two strong arms seize her, and a handkerchief with a strange odor was placed over her mouth and nose. As the floor disappeared beneath her, Christine swooned off. 

When Christine came to, she was lying on her bed in the Louis-Philippe room in Erik's underground home. With a moan, she turned over and came face to face with Erik, who had knelt beside the bed to watch his beloved. Christine let out a scream of alarm and jumped up to a sitting position on the bed, in doing so distancing herself from Erik.

"Come, my dear, don't runaway from your Erik," he said coolly.

"Erik, what have you done?"

"I think I need not answer that, Christine. You know right well what has happened and why I did it."

"You can't keep me here like this Erik!" Suddenly, Christine noticed something in Erik's hand. "The rose," she said gravely.

Erik retorted bitterly, "Yes, my little present that you so carelessly allowed to be trampled." He threw thecrushed rose onto the white coverlet.

Christine looked at it for a moment and remembered how one of the thorns had pricked her.She muttered, "The thorns... Why did you leave the thorns on the stem?"

"Did you not read my note? 'The thorn defends the rose.' It is true, Christine. The thorn defends the rose from anyone who should defile its beauty. You are my rose and I am your thorn."

_**Fin**_

A/N: Please R&R. Flames are welcome!


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